Hey everybody.đź‘‹ Welcome to my second story. I'm hard at work on getting things ready for this one. I thought I would go ahead and start the thread and give you an idea what's going on. I'll post occasional updates in here but most will be in the "What Happened In Your Game Today" thread for now.
With the cast pretty much done I'm down to working on the hard part, lots. I don't want any of the main cast to be homeless, but Del Sol Valley is sooo tiny. I'm adding San Myshuno and Oasis Springs to DSV to form a sort of Sims SoCal. DSV stands in as a Sims Hollywood and Malibu. San Myshuno is downtown. Oasis Springs is a Palm Springs like resort where the stars will get away for relaxation and such. I'm looking for either a weather mod to make San My like DSV or I will just turn off snow and weather effects and hope that I don't have lots of sims running around dressed for winter.
I'm hoping to have the first chapter done and posted by the end of the month. I really hope this story will live up to your expectations.
X'D ...I thought I was used to words having sims spliced into them like "Al Simhara" and similar, but... simtch? The worst thing about that is that as weird as it looks written, it works when said... I can just feel how one would spit that word out like the worst curse ever. XDD It's amazing.
I see Malcolm is the reckless type of evil and suspect Nancy of being the methodical type. You know, she talks about risk and reward, but I wouldn't be surprised if she thought there are worse things one can do to a sim than kill them. I mean, she herself is very prideful, and probably had to face some danger herself, hard to avoid that in her line of work... yup, wouldn't be surprised at all if she would actually rather embarrass than "whack," especially in this case.
...And I'd say, you tell them Octavia! Even a celeb deserves some privacy. But then, I gotta wonder what is this gonna do to her public image. She had a really positive one, right? Oooh, well, I guess not anymore!
@_Gina It sounds like you really enjoyed this one.? I can't take credit for creating the word 'simtch'. I learned it from a drama mod I installed last week. You have the Landgraabs pegged. Nancy learned the business from her father and Malcolm takes after him. Nancy saw the mistakes her father made and decided to do things differently. She will call for a hit if it's needed but she's way less trigger happy. She does believe she's the smartest person in any room and she is dismissive of everybody else. Her feelings that Mimi is tarnishing the Landgraab name is her way of saying Mimi tarnishing the name Nancy Landgraab. She could care less about Malcolm or Geoffrey's image unless it could affect her. I never thought to look at Octavia's reputation before or after she tossed the paparazzi out.? You are right it will definitely have gone down at least a little. Since it was just the four of them and not in front of a crowd in public the drop might be smaller.
There may very well be a major rewrite coming today. I know Nancy and Malcolm received some positive feedback for their segment, but the original plan for the story never called for Nancy to have a big role and it didn't even include Malcolm beyond a mention or two. The creative juices were flowing last night and this morning. I did some more work on Mimi and Nancy's verbal sparring match and I realize now I didn't need Nancy to confront Mimi in public to make the dialogue work. To establish a reason for that to happen I felt I had to set up the scene that I posted. In hindsight as I worked on their dialogue Mimi's apartment is a perfect environment for it. In addition I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to suddenly add in two more characters that I hadn't given any thought too, on top of all the other storylines I have.
The animosity Nancy has towards Mimi and their face to face confrontation was only meant to showcase Mimi's strength and determination to be their authentic self and to continue that journey to finding out who that is. It was never meant to make Nancy and Malcolm major characters.
"luciusstorm;c-18216126" wrote: @DaniRose2143, you do you. I'm sure it will be interesting however you choose to play it.
I decided to put it back in.? I got so caught up in visualizing their meeting happening in the club that instead of thinking of ways to write it and having it happen in Mimi's apartment I forced the story down this path. Their confrontation has always been planned for the second chapter so I'll stick with that. What becomes of Nancy and Malcolm after that...I don't have a clue. I never thought that far ahead with them. I may end up having to put some of the minor characters like Holly and Bristol, Tianna and Harley on hold and figure out how to work them and the Landgraab's in.
It's a valuable lesson, I need to stop second guessing and looking for perfection and just embrace the mistake and see where it goes. And plan better.?
The joy of serialized storytelling. I've had a few misteps and things I would have done differently in retrospect. It's challenging.
I think even if Nancy and Malcolm never appear again, they'll have done their part and done it well... and if you ever decide you need them, they'll be out there.
Oh my Gosh! I thought I'd posted my response to this chapter days ago but it was just here sitting in drafts :s Here it is anyway!
I loved this chapter! I didn't read the accidental sneak-peek when it came out just because I wanted to wait for the full chapter to see how it all came together, and I'm glad that I did! Lots of hateful characters here right off the bat, and I'm very much enjoying the drama so far! I's great how different this is to Under the Tartosan Sun, because here I get the feeling that anything crazy could happen at any time, it's kind of thrilling - also it must be fun for you to be able to showcase this side of your writing, get to try out a different, more fast-paced and unpredictable style.
YIKES to all storylines here, Judith is definitely a tricky woman, and I don't envy those around her. She's completely self-obsessed and has ISSUES, and it makes me wonder what fame quirks she actually has in game - I'm thinking definitely that one that your sim has to look in the mirror every few hours, and the one where her emotions are explosive. Malcolm and Nancy... i don't even have the words. They're just deliciously evil. I can't believe they'd actually discuss the murder Mimi just for the crime of being herself and thriving, it shows the depth of their shame and discomfort - why can't they just let her be? Why must they publicly humiliate her? I read the discussion about your intentions for them, and I get it. If you don't want them to be recurring characters in your story then whatever - leave them out. The writing process is a journey and we live and learn. Either way, I'm sure it was a fun exercise to write about their conversation and their intentions, even if you don't plan to take then much further than this. As for Thorne and Octavia, he certainly seems like a handful.. imagine posing for the paps in your own home! Inviting them to invade your personal space without okaying it with your partner - Octavia was rightfully angry, but it sure is a shame that they caught her blowing up like that - that sure isn't going to do anything good for her reputation. I bet the tabloids will have a field day with this, smh.
@hellohannah2 It’s all good.❤️ I’ve done the same thing. At least it didn’t disappear and you have to write it all over again.? It couldn’t be more different. I’m really stepping outside of my comfort zone for this one and it’s fun. My two biggest concerns are that I’m making my villains a little too over the top, and writing Octavia’s dialogue where she switches and speaks in AAVE. I’m not African American but I want Octavia, Malaika, and Sheniqua to feel real. I want to be sure as I’m writing their parts that above all it’s done respectfully and as authentically as I can possibly make it.
Judith’s biggest problem is she’s never heard the word no. Her mother used Judith as a surrogate to realize her own failed dreams of fame and fortune. In the end she achieved that but she created a monster. Nancy and Malcolm are the dark heart of homophobia and transphobia. At the risk of giving away too much, Nancy will be the one walking away from their confrontation publicly humiliated. Mimi is already up there with Danielle and Londyn as favorites. Mimi has such a fascinating journey ahead. Thorne is all about Thorne. In his warped way he…I wouldn’t say he loves Octavia all that deeply, but he does care about her. He just can’t get over himself to truly love anybody. The two paps hatching their embellished story may not have quite the happy ending they’re expecting.?
Thanks for sharing that insight into Judith, Nancy, and others.
In my previous comment, I focused on Nancy being awful instead of Malcolm because she's Malcolm and Mimi's mother. I feel that there's something particularly awful about being so cruel to your child and then not correcting your other child when he talks casually about killing them (or only being against their murder for self-interested reasons). The parent is not parenting. But I definitely think Malcolm is awful too. Poor Mimi. <3
With AAVE - I don't know AAVE, but I wonder about when Octavia is most likely to use it. To me and I'd be curious to hear your perspective on this because everyone has an interesting perspective, Octavia would be most likely to use it around other African-Americans as well as close friends and least likely to use it when she's flustered or made angry by people of other races. I feel like most African-American women who work their way up are extremely sensitive to the ramifications of losing their cool in public and wouldn't really use AAVE in those situations because of how likely it is to be used against them and have already experienced tons of racist microaggressions against them - there's that whole angry black woman stereotype and people generally are more likely to see them as uneducated and undeserving, etc. because they're not using the English taught in school. I feel like the media may play into this stereotype of African-American women going off on non-African Americans using AAVE but I don't think that reflects reality. :confused: idk. I think African-American women are also less likely to use it with non-African Americans simply because the people they're frustrated with and trying to make a point to might not understand them. I'm personally very interested in languages and cross-cultural stuff so I often think about what languages/words people are likely to use and when/why.
ETA: Regardless, I feel particularly sad for Octavia here because her anger is justified, but those around her seem to either ignore/dismiss/gaslight her which should make someone angry (Thorne) or are going to take advantage of her anger to be able to paint her as the bad guy (Madison and Darrin) when all she did was yell and make them leave her house.
This is why I'm so scared to tackle this. You have a much better feel for this than I do. It's very scary trying to do something like this, because it is so easy to get this wrong and I do not want to offend anyone. I have a growing feeling that I got it wrong with her. I was nervous about even trying it at all and I haven't been comfortable with how it came out in this chapter. It's a part of her character and the others that I'm really not sure I should continue. This next chapter is going to feature Mimi and some of the other characters so I have some time to get more feedback and to do a lot more learning and deliberating before I get back to Octavia, Malaika, and Sheniqua.
About The Sims 4 Creative Corner
Share screenshots, stories, builds, custom creations, mods, challenges, and funny moments in our Sims 4 Creative Corner.9,091 PostsLatest Activity: 8 hours ago